I'll tell you a secret now, LOTF. There's more than one of those videos, one's about 7 minutes long....
.... and I've never watched more than a couple of minutes of any of them.
I figure I don't need to. I used to get dogs out of Irish pounds and into UK rescue. Never been to Ireland in my life, did it all via a network of fellow rescuers/volunteers from here in the UK. I saved hundreds from certain death, those I could get released from the pound I found no kill rescue for, every one of them... but I also lost several, those which the pound managers refused to let out. Healthy young dogs who were largely just rejected by the pound manager as being "aggressive" because they growled in fear... and that was almost always the only reason, this I was told by the folk "on the shop floor", who were going into the pound and photographing the dogs ready to put their pictures up on appeals for the likes of me to save.
That pound killed scores of dogs. Many of those came from the neighbouring county, they "don't get paid to care for" those dogs, so they killed them, they didn't even advertise them for new homes, make it known that the dogs were there to those who had lost their dogs or allow rescue to offer those dogs a place of safety. Several of those dogs were puppies, many pedigree breeds, often no more than 8 or 12 weeks old.
I instigated and fought a long, hard campaign to get a pound of it's own in that neighbouring county, paid for BY the neighbouring county, so there would be no more killing of dogs just because the pound they were in didn't get paid to care for them. It took almost a year to get it, a year of fighting a pound and council which broke the law, killing dogs before their 5 days were up, which killed indiscriminatively, a pound which lied and covered up, which threatened us that if we exposed them there would be no more access to their pound, no more taking photos and doing as much of an assessment as was possible and therefore no more getting dogs out into rescue.
It made me very ill in the end - I was not long since recovring from cancer and in the end, that Christmas, I was wiped out by a flu like, stress related illness, not able to walk, stand or eat for 8 days, my dogs eating food direct from the big sack in the kitchen, drinking water from the bathroom poured as I struggled to go there to be ill (sorry, TMI!). On about the 3rd day I managed to get downstairs and leave the garden door open so they could go out to the loo... it was snowing outside, a rough northern winter, must have been freezing downstairs. That's all I can remember, I was pretty much drifting in and out of consciousness, thank god my then 8 and 10 yo DDs were down south with my parents for Xmas.
I started to recover on New Years Day... which was when I read that Meath Council had a pound of it's own. Not much, but it was a start. Their county's dogs would at least have a CHANCE of rescue, rehoming or being reunited with their families.
By then I'd made a lot of enemies... so now you know why I shrug off criticism on here for my strong views... perhaps you know too by now why I hold those views. I wasn't Irish, I was interfering, I should fuck off back to where I belonged. I was threatened with legal and "other" action for exposing the pound in Dundalk.
But I had done what I had set out to achieve, with the hard work of Dublin's AR supporter and rescuer Bernie Wright, to whom I will always owe more than I can ever repay. I was by then persona non grata with those who feared the pound and lacked the courage to speak out... and in part they were right, for the pound DID for a weel refuse the rescuers out there entry to photograph the dogs and a whole weeks intake, maybe 20, maybe 50 dogs were murdered. That haunts me, blood on MY hands, it fills my nightmares though in the long run I saved so many more by helping to get Meath pound built.
My nightmares are also haunted by the images in my mind of the dogs which the manager wouldn't release. The kennel mate of the scruffy mutt who now lives in the rescue I help out at, adopted by the DP of the owner... he was deemed to nervous to release, Bertie made it to rescue, leaving that friend behind in a black binliner. The 18 year old collie girl who the manager said was too old to be bothered about. The sister of another who went to the rescue I help at, too growly to be released. The dog which the owner had in his car when he arrived at the pound, laying beside his dead kennel mate - the owner had shot him. The 8 week old puppies who were hidden in the back of the pound, out of sight, then killed without anyone being allowed to help them because Dundalk pound "didn;'t get paid to care for Meath dogs".
So, as I said, I figure I don't need to watch those videos. I have them running through my mind already.
And is it much better in the UK? Do our pounds ALWAYS act according to law, do our pounds try to find homes/original owners/cooperate with rescue? No. I know of those who won't even TRY to find rescue or homes for GSDs, Rotts, Staffies and Bull crosses and the like, they kill them as soon as their 7 days are up without bothering because they deem these dogs too hard to home. For that read "it will cost us money to keep them, and we don't get paid to care for dogs after their 7 days are up".
Now, maybe, you know a bit more about pounds... and a bit more about why I'm the way I am, the way I speak as I do.... because I don't need to watch those videos.